Psychoanalytical Example Essay
The scientist Freud was concerned to analyze logically the seeming illogic, the apparent irrationality, of dreams and, on occasion, of nightmares. Both he and Conrad penetrated into the darkness, the darkness entered into when people sleep or when their consciences sleep, when they are free to pursue secret wishes, whether in dreams, like Freud's analysands [patients], or in actuality, like Kurtz and his followers. The key word is darkness; the black of the jungle for Conrad is the dark of the sleeping consciousness for Freud.
In still another sense, Marlow, in his trip up the Congo, has suffered through a nightmare, an experience that sends him back a different man, now aware of depths in himself that he cannot hide. The tale he narrates on the Nellie is one he is unable to suppress; a modern version of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, he has discovered a new world and must relate his story to regain stability. The account is a form of analysis--for him and for Conrad. In a way, it provides a defense against Kurtz's vision.
--From "Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad's Heart of Darkness." by Frederick R. Karl
In still another sense, Marlow, in his trip up the Congo, has suffered through a nightmare, an experience that sends him back a different man, now aware of depths in himself that he cannot hide. The tale he narrates on the Nellie is one he is unable to suppress; a modern version of Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, he has discovered a new world and must relate his story to regain stability. The account is a form of analysis--for him and for Conrad. In a way, it provides a defense against Kurtz's vision.
--From "Introduction to the Danse Macabre: Conrad's Heart of Darkness." by Frederick R. Karl